Northrop Grumman Corporation (NYSE:NOC) has announced the Company’s campuses in Boulder and Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Azusa, California, have successfully sustained their Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI(r)) Maturity Level 3 rating, as approved by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI).
The three campuses are part of Northrop Grumman‘s Space and ISR Systems Division (S&ISD), a unit of the company’s Electronic Systems sector. These campuses collaborate in developing space and supporting ground systems that process and exploit information throughout the electronic spectrum for use in missile warning, missile defense, battlespace awareness, technical intelligence, space situational awareness, and weather and environmental monitoring. Northrop Grumman has pursued division-wide CMMI(r) appraisals since 2005 as a long-term investment in technical cooperation and efficiency.
The Azusa campus leads the company’s work on the Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS). This campus develops the SBIRS payload; supports the SBIRS system engineering, integration and testing segment; and supports SBIRS ground system development. The Azusa campus also develops a variety of other infrared and microwave sensors to support the National Polar-Orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System and the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, and provides mission support to the Defense Support Program.
The Boulder campus provides leadership in designing, developing and sustaining ground mission processing and exploitation systems. In addition to supporting and sustaining the SBIRS ground system, the Boulder campus is responsible for leading various missile warning, missile defense, and other exploitation programs. The Colorado Springs campus is responsible for supporting the development, maintenance and sustainment of the Joint Tactical Ground Station program. The campus is also responsible for supporting the Integrated Space Command and Control contract and the Joint Research and Development Contract. Engineering expertise at all three campuses is used to successfully execute these and other mission processing and exploitation programs.
Together, the campuses employ approximately 1,350 people with diverse technical expertise in systems engineering, software development, hardware development, manufacturing, integration and test. CMMI is a process improvement framework that organizations use to improve their ability to build and maintain quality engineering products and services. The framework defines a set of objective standards for assessing an organization’s full range of engineering processes. Developed by SEI, CMMI is also a set of best practices that addresses productivity, performance, costs and integration of traditionally separate organizational functions. The appraisal was led by the Center for Systems Management, an independent external consulting organization. The company completed a Standard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement Class A appraisal using version 1.2 of the CMMI Development Model.
